I like Jon Gruden the best, but I don't believe he would want to coach here. Not without at least a Cutler-quality QB and a better defense.
I would assume that's the route he would go also. I would like to see him mimic what Sean Payton has going with the Saints. Jay seems to have a calm demeanor, but I assume he has a little fire and leadership ability since he did play the QB position albeit in the Arena League. I've been impressed with his development of Andy Dalton (minus the Dolphins game). He's doing a good job, for the most part, of masking his weaknesses. Having an AJ Green sure doesn't hurt though. Plus, like someone already mentioned, he could potentially pair up with Duke Tobin as the GM, because somebody has been building a nice roster in Cincinnati.
I would honestly rather give Jay Gruden a shot than to waste time trying to woo Jon Gruden. I don't think Jon Gruden knows what the hell he wants to do. And that doesn't bode well if you do manage to woo him to the team. I have Bill Cowher on my list despite some of the same applying to him, because I think that when Bill retired he had specific family reasons and has not only a timeline but also certain conditions in his mind related to when he wants to come back to it. But if I'm wrong about that? Strike him off the list. I want a dude that not only knows what he wants, but has known for a while and has put some work into getting what he wants.
Good point about Jon. The Dolphins have brought coaches in before (i.e. Saban) where they've had to convince them, so it'd be nice to have a coach who actually wanted to be here. With Jay having coached in Florida before, I would think he'd have some sort of idea about the culture, fans, etc associated with the Dolphins. I honestly think South Florida has been a big adjustment for a guy like Joe Philbin.
The chances are that neither Jon Gruden nor Bill Cowher would be willing to come to Miami without a HELL of a lot of convincing. That doesn't bode well. I wouldn't assume Jon Gruden wants to be in Florida. I keep hearing him connected with Oakland. Also Atlanta, for whatever reason. In fact I've heard him flat out say he'd love to go coach back in Oakland again. On the other hand, I think Jay Gruden wants to come back to Florida very badly because he's always been down here, one way or another. He would take the Tampa Bay or Jacksonville jobs before he takes the Miami job, but Jacksonville only JUST hired Gus Bradley, and if the Tampa Bay job is not available to him this off season? You never know with the Glazers. There could be grudges.
I'm simply not able to comment on the good candidates, I have no idea how they will be. Some horror stories however: 1) Herman Edwards and Carl Peterson, the package deal. Where the package is a flaming turd and the destination is every dolphin fan's mouth, every Sunday, for however long it lasts. 2) Nat Moore and Bob Griese, because they clearly have an outstanding grasp of our roster as displayed by their commentary during preseason. 3) Dan Marino is hired as GM and reaches out to his old pal, Don Strock, to coach the team, saying Don has a proven track record of getting players to fight hard in Miami. 4) Ross reaches out to Harbaugh again, gets turned down again, and is guilty of tampering and loses our first round pick. 5) Marty Schottenheimer. 6) Marty Schottenheimer and Ireland stays. 7) Eric Mangini, and an ESPN staffer to run personnel. 8) George Lucas buys the team and promises to personally direct football operations. Fans everywhere start a petition to have him let Lawrence Kasdan do it instead.
If you just want to bring the Art Briles offense and philosophy to Miami then you could look at Dino Babers as your offensive coordinator. He's the head coach at Eastern Illinois right now. Big time Briles disciple. Has coached at a lot of different places in college but considers himself a Briles guy now, continuing on with Briles' philosophies. That offense at Eastern Illinois has exploded. They even ventured out to FBS territory and beat Iowa, beat San Diego State, came 4 points shy of beating Norther Illinois (you know the "BCS buster" that went to the Orange Bowl against FSU last year?). That Northern Illinois game is the only game they lost all year, and that is the Number 15 ranked team in the nation, and they only beat Eastern Illinois by 4 points. Babers' squad actually had the lead on them in the fourth quarter until Jordan Lynch scored a go-ahead touchdown.
If we're going to cheer for a crappy team, might as well cheer for a crappy team that has a potential to be exciting.
Raiders? Must have been thinking of Chucky. My fault. I still think Cincinnati's offense still has to many "Miami Dolphin"-esque games for my taste. I know Marvin Lewis is about as bad as it gets when it comes to time management and critical situations; but I think some of that's Jay Gruden as well. I just wouldn't be comfortable with him, especially if he's inclined to leave Kevin Coyle in place. Just my preference.
No conference titles, no division titles, 1-2 in the playoffs in 9 years. You guys are doing that thing where mediocrity gets spun to look like success again.
Very interesting discussion so far, a lot of names I am in favor of and a lot of names I will have to do my research on in the coming weeks. First of all as much as I would love to have Jon Gruden, Bill Cower, and Rex Ryan I don’t think the first 2 will be interested in coaching the dolphins and latter won’t be available. Here is a list of guys that I would interview if I had the job of picking a coach. In no particular order David Shaw Jay Gruden Ken Whisenhunt Lovie Smith Scott Linehan Jack Del Rio I don’t know a lot about most of the college guys I am hearing about such as Sumlin and Briles but I will definitely look into them more over the next couple of weeks. One college coach I do know something about is Shaw. I have seen plenty of interviews with him where he seems very intelligent, very well spoken, yet the kind of guy that can relate to players, he is also very young. Stanford also hasn’t missed a beat between Shaw and Harbaugh. Jay Gruden has experience as both a player and a coach in the Arena league. He has also been one of the best offensive coordinators in football since 2011. Like Shaw he’s also young, sounds intelligent and well spoken but also seems like he can relate with players. I feel Ken Whisenhunt got a raw deal in Arizona. Before he got there Arizona hadn’t been to the playoffs since I believe 98. As soon as he got there the franchise went through its most dominant time period. 07 they were middle of the pack but fun to watch on offense. In 08 they came within 1 drive of winning the Superbowl and in 09 they made the second round. After Warner retired Whisenhunt was never given a quarterback even remotely capable. Below average drafting and lack of a qb did Whisenhunt in and I feel he deserves another chance. Lovie Smith was very successful with the bears. As said before isn’t the best offensive mind in the league but he can run a top notch defense that causes a lot of turnovers. Scott Linehan might be a bit controversial since I have yet to see his name in this post however I think he is worth an interview. His run with the Rams from 06-08 was bad but lets be honest those post Martz Rams teams were some of the least talented teams in football the last 15 years. Belichick probably wouldn’t be able to coach those teams to the playoffs. As a coordinator he has always been one of the best. In 04 Culpepper had one of the best seasons for a quarterback in history. With the Lions he has found a way to use Reggie Bush better than any team or coach has to date. Granted having Calvin Johnson makes everybody’s job easier but Linehan does something that our coaches should think about doing, he moves his best players around. I would also like to point out that he probably was the best offensive coordinator that the dolphins had in the last 10 years. Chris Chambers had by far the best year of his career under Linehan and Gus Frerotte had a pretty decent year as well. Like some of the previous mentioned names I think that Jack Del Rio deserves a second chance. During Del Rios stay he made the playoffs twice in 05 and 07 years where he would have won the division a probably more games if the colts weren’t at their peak years. Del Rio also had one of the worst GM’s in football for a period in Gene Smith. Even though Smith took over in 2009 if you look at the Jaguars first round picks since 2003 when Del Rio took over you can see that he really hasn’t had a lot to work with. Del Rio always seemed to be the kind of coach that could get his players to play hard for him. I don’t ever remember a Del Rio Jaguars team that was a really bad football team. I do remember a lot of Del Rio Jaguars teams that had limited talent but over came it to an extent.
It means you get mediocre results. Did you actually just compare Jack Del Rio to Bill Belichick and Pete Carroll? OK, sure.
Jon Gruden as HC Jay Gruden Assistant HC/OC. Either one would get great play out of Tannehill. I don't buy that Jon Gruden won't come here, not for a second. Coaches don't care about the Martin Saga nonsense, they want a talented team with a Qb they can win with. I've watched Gruden talk about and break down Tannehill, he likes him, likes him a lot. I think if we contacted him he would be interested. This team has talent, has draft picks and is not very far from a playoff team right now. If a coaching candidate likes Tannehill he wouldn't be hard to convince to come here.
No conference titles while competing with Peyton Manning in his division. And I don't expect anyone would've won a bunch of playoff games with David Garrard and Byron Leftwich. I think you're not thinking this one through. The Jags were **** up when he took over in 2003 and they went **** up again when he left in 2011. His GM drafted horrendously under his watch. Seriously. Look through it sometime if you ever want to feel better about Jeff Ireland. Eugene Monroe, Terrance Knighton, Derek Cox, Rashean Mathis, Marcedes Lewis, Maurice Jones-Drew, Daryl Smith, Tyson Alualu and Cecil Shorts are the only good/semi-good players drafted in Jacksoniville over a nine year period. Everyone else were crap. That's awful. Ken Whisenhunt played victim of some of the same. They drafted Calais Campbell, Dan Williams, Daryl Washington and Pat Peterson the six years he was there. The QBs they gave him to replace Kurt Warner were Derek Anderson, Kevin Kolb, John Skelton, etc. They're doing so much better this year (the Cardinals) but my goodness, look at the huge changes they've made to personnel. I detailed it earlier this off season when I kept talking about how the over at 5.5 wins for Arizona looked like easy money. Jack Del Rio very much is on his way to coaching again. And if the Chargers offense keeps having a resurgence with Whisenhunt then he could be as well.
Who was Belichick before he arrived in NE? A failed Head Coach. Likewise with Carroll. So, yes I did. They are just two examples that prove my point. A mediocre stint with one team doesn't automatically mean that HC is nothing more than a mediocre Head Coach.
I don't think he compares with Belichick at all but I do think he compares a little bit with Pete Carroll.
I think these are some great points. As I pointed out in my post I would give both Whisenhunt and Del Rio an interview. I think both guys did a lot with very little help from their GM’s. Whisenhunt came within one drive of winning a Superbowl in his second year. Del Rio as both you and I pointed out had to contend with Peyton Manning during the Colts peak years and had to deal with horrible draft classes. Here are the Jaguars first round picks from 03- 11 2003 - Byron Leftwich 2004 - Reggie Williams 2005 - Matt Jones 2006 - Marcedes Lewis 2007 - Reggie Nelson 2008- Derrick Harvey 2009 - Eugene Monroe 2010 - Tyson Alualu 2011 - Blaine Gabbert That might be the worst 9 year stretch I have ever seen. I probably could have done a better job. When your best player in 9 years in Eugene Monroe your not getting value out of your first round picks. Here is also Del Rio’s records in those years 2003 – 5-11 2004 – 9-7 2005- 12-4 2006- 8-8 2007- 11-5 2008 5-11 2009- 7-9 2010- 8-8 2011 – 5-11 When you look at those drafts it’s a shock that they made the playoffs twice and never had less then 5 wins.
If I had to give an order of the available and/or unemployed, it would be: 1. Lovie Smith 2. Ken Whisenhunt 3. Jay Gruden 4. David Shaw 5. Greg Roman I'd prefer guys with NFL experience whose teams have performed at high levels, but have not won a Super Bowl. I like that Jay Gruden and David Shaw have been head coaches on some level, and Greg Roman I just like what he does, although it might be the wrong idea. I'm not sure I want to bet on Jon Gruden or Bill Cowher to be the first head coach to win a Super Bowl with a second team, and I'm kinda torn on them in general.
I don't see the love affair with john gruden? The guy isn't that great, rich Gannon masked his coaching failures by playing out of his mind, then he inherited tony dungys team and drove them into the ground after the sb... The only good year after that was when Cadillac Williams carried them but lost in the wild card game.. With the raiders Gannon was exposed by the ravens a great defense by getting shut out or a field goal.. Whatever shut out... He's not that great..
Herm Edwards because... [video=youtube;IMk5sMHj58I]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMk5sMHj58I[/video]
While I personally would be happy with Jon Gruden as my coach I do kind of see your point. I think Gruden is a little overrated in some circles. Rich Gannon did play great in the early 2000's and had his best year in 2002 after Gruden left. Gruden also did take over one of the most talented teams in the last 20 years. However, give Gruden credit because he did win a superbowl with the team Dungy couldn't. I agree that after 2002 Tampa did start to decline but they did make the playoffs in 05 and 07 and was one of the better teams in the nfc in 08 before a late collapse. Overall Gruden is overated, he is no savior, however he is better than any coach the dolphins have had since Jimmy Johnson. If you give Gruden a good GM he will win.
